Women in federally regulated workforce declining: study

The proportion of women-to-men working in federally regulated private companies has dropped significantly over the past 20 years at the same time as the number of women in Canada’s workforce has risen, according to a new federal government report obtained by iPolitics.

The report, prepared by Employment and Social Development Canada, found that the proportion of women in those companies has declined from close to 46 per cent in 1993 to only 41.4 per cent in 2014 – not far from where it was in the late 1980s. At the same time, the Canadian labor market availability of women has climbed from 46 per cent to 48.2 per cent.

MaryAnn Mihychuk, minister for employment, workforce development and labour, said she was “very disappointed” by the results.

“It is dropping and I think the report is going to be a surprise to most people. There is, I think, a general opinion that women are doing better.

At the same time, the report showed marked increases for other groups it tracked – indigenous Canadians, those with disabilities and visible minorities.

“Visible minorities have found their place,” Mihychuk said. “They are represented in the workplace – just even slightly above their overall percentage in the population so they are doing very well. Disabled and indigenous people are on an upward trend.”

“The designated group that has taken a severe downturn is women. We see that in our federally regulated industries. We’re hearing about it in our institutions. That has got to stop and we’ve got to turn it around.”

Now that she’s got the numbers, Mihychuk says she wants to act.

“The first part is understanding the numbers, making the public aware of the issue and we have to see how far we are prepared to go to make change.”

Among Canada’s major cities, the lowest proportion of women in federally regulated companies, 33.7 per cent was in Mihychuk’s own city of Winnipeg. The highest proportion was in Regina where women made up 46.1 per cento of the employees in those companies.

Among provinces and territories, the lowest proportion of women in federally regulated companies was in the Northwest Territories at only 24.2 per cent although 47.8 per cent of women were available to work. The highest rate was in New Brunswick where the proportion of women was 49.5 per cent – higher than the 48.3 per cent availability of women.

The study found that transportation companies had the worst track record when it came to employment equity. Women made up only 27.2 per cent of the employees in private sector transportation sector companies, 14.2 per cent of the workforce were members of visible minorities and 2 per cent had a disability. The only area in which the transportation industry fared better than others was with aboriginal peoples who made up 2.8 per cent of the employees.

The banking sector had the best track record with three of the four employment equity groups. Women made up 61.5 per cent of the workforce in banking, 30.2 per cent were members of visible minorities and 4 per cent had a disability. However, banking had the lowest proportion of aboriginal Canadians of any sector at 1.3 per cent.

Communications came up the middle with women at 37.4 per cent, visible minorities at 18.6 per cent, people with disabilities at 2.3 per cent and aboriginal peoples making up 1.8 per cent of the employees.

In a fourth category that mixed several different federally regulated industries from metal ore mining and wood to public administration or professional, scientific and technical services, 30.9 per cent of employees were women, 12.2 per cent came from visible minorities, 4.5 per cent were aboriginal and 2.6 per cent had disabilities.

Women did make some progress, however, when it came to their pay cheques, the study found.

“The 2014 reporting year makes the first time that a higher proportion of women in permanent full-time positions earned a salary within the top range of $60,000 or more (41.5 per cent) compared to the lowest salary range of below $50,000 (38.4 per cent),” the authors of the study wrote. “In contrast, 57.7 per cent of men were in the top salary range in 2014, while only 24 per cent of men earned below $50,000.”

The remaining 20.1 per cent of women and 18.3 per cent of men earned between $50,000 and $59,999.

Aboriginal Canadians – particularly aboriginal women – didn’t fare as well. Although there was improvement in their salaries, 55.5 per cent of aboriginal men and 32.2 per cent of aboriginal women earned more than $60,000 in federally regulated private companies. At the other end of the spectrum, 46.9 per cent of aboriginal women and 26.8 per cent of aboriginal men in those companies earned less than $50,000.

“A higher proportion of Aboriginal peoples in permanent full-time positions earned $60,000 or more in 2014 than in 2013,” the authors wrote. “However, the proportion of Aboriginal men and women in this salary range continued to be lower than all men and all women respectively.”

Women with disabilities also had challenges to make it past the $60,000 a year mark. The study found that only 37.3 per cent of women with disabilities earned that amount or higher, compared with 54.4 per cent of men with disabilities.

There was a gap between men and women who come from visible minorities. While 52.1 per cent of visible minority men working in federally regulated industries earned over $60,000, that dropped to 39.8 per cent of women.

“Employers are showing greater interest and awareness in employment equity through their commitment to implementing short-term and long-term measures in the workplace, including improvements to hiring and retention processes, accessible training and networking opportunities for advancement and overall evidence of employment equity integration into day-to-day activities.”